Autumn League

Autumn League is a seminal Canberra frisbee experience. No other city in Australia has a league quite like ours, which starts out with mild April nights and ends in June with crisp evenings, occaisional fog and, even more occaisionally, ice forming on discs left lying on the sidelines. Long time Canberra players will tell you of how the cold makes frisbees harder and makes throwing more precise. Other players will tell you about watching finals with mugs of hot soup. Some will point out that the heavy dews in the later weeks of the season make the fields perfect for laying out. I will tell you that the cold only makes it easier to run hard and that Autumn League in Canberra is a chance to genuinely enjoy weather that most people miss by hiding out inside. It's a beautiful time of year in the ACT, a great league and always heaps of fun.

If you're keen for some ultimate as it should be played get yourself registered on the AFDA website. You'll need an AFDA number (which you'll already have if you've been playing at other Australian events). The rego page is:

http://www.afda.com/rego/showdivision.php?divisionid=1370.

The league runs on Wednesday nights, starting on April the 7th and finishing on June the 2nd. It's at the Dickson Playing Fields on Antil Street. Division 3 starts at 6:40 and Division 2 starts at 8:00. If you're already on a team then sign up with your buddies, otherwise register in the "players with no team" section and the League Organisers (Anthony and Sonia) will sort you out.

Once again, unfortunately, there will be no division 1 because the local club team players are all totally snowed under with training for Nationals and the World Club Championships in Prague later this year. More on that in another post.

Congratulations to our local Aussie reps

Hi All,

Two ACT players have been selected to represent Australia at Ultimate tournaments later this year.

Ben Matthews-Hunter will play for the under 19s Australian team at the World Junior Ultimate Championships in Heilbronn, Germany (in early August). Ben regularly plays for Discotheque in division 2 and has been training with Fyshwick United and Kaboom as well to get himself ready for the main event. We're all looking forward to seeing Ben duking it out with the best young players from around the world and wish him all the best for his preparation and tournament.

Andrew "AJ" Jackson has also been selected to play for Australia, and will play with the under 23s Australian team at the Under 23s World Championships in Florence, Italy in July. AJ's positive attitude and cheery tone have been a real hallmark of his time playing frisbee in Canberra and he'll be bringing that same enthusiasm to the field in the green and gold.

If you see AJ or Ben around the traps be sure to say hi and give them some poorly thought out technical or strategic advice. Both also accept donations.

Spring League 2009, first details

Hi All

Spring League is scheduled to start on Tuesday 6th October at the Dickson Playing Fields. This season, the ACTUA Committee has agreed to try a series of changes to the format of how spring league is conducted. The background to this decision is that we have had to turn away teams in recent leagues due to a lack of space and the proposed changes will hopefully resolve that problem. The format for Spring League will be as follows:

Social Division 3

Division 3 will be at 6.30pm as per previous years. There will not be any significant change. Games will finish promptly at 7.40pm. Any Division 3 team that participated in Autumn League is welcome to apply to participate in the upcoming Division 3 league. New Division 3 teams are welcome to apply but will be subject to the approval of the LOG (League Organiser Guy / Gal).

Social Division 2

Division 2 will be at 7.50pm which is a significant change from previous years. Any Division 2 team that participated in Autumn League that wants to play in this league must register for the 7.50pm time slot. This will be strictly enforced and the rebadging of a team to circumvent the change in time slot will not be permitted (i.e. a team called the Apples with the majority of the players being from last seasons Bananas Team will not be allowed entry into Division 3).

Division 2 players who cannot play in the later time slot may register in Division 3 as individual players without a team and we will endeavour to find you a team to play on.


Division 1

There will be no Intermediate / Division 1 league this season due to reduced interest and other ultimate commitments. With a season off it will hopefully revitalise people's interests by summer.


League Organiser

As yet we do not have a league organiser. Without a league organiser there will be no league. If you are interested in being the LOG or being a LOG helper (i.e. someone who doesn't want to be the boss but is happy to help mark the fields or collect scores) can you please let me know. The LOG is gets paid a honorarium.


League Registration Site

Details of the registration site will be forwarded later this week.

Kaboom teams announce for the NSW Qualification Tournament and Mixed Nationals

The teams for Wollongong and Hobart have been selected.

NSW mixed qualification tournament, 29-30th August, Wollongong.

Erin Wallis
Mica Hartley
Michelle Phillips
Larissa Arney
Heather Tolley
Lorna Barr
Carrie Flynn
Nat Cheong

Adam Mortimer
Tom Watson
Gareth Bayer
Pete Flynn
Max Wheeler
Asher Gentle
Warwick Shepherd
James Ley
Andrew Sutton
Myall Hingee

Non-player Coach: John Horan

Mixed Nationals, 10-12 October, Hobart

Mica Hartley
Michelle Phillips
Larissa Arney
Heather Tolley
Lorna Barr
Carrie Flynn
Jess Preston
Vickie Saye

Adam Mortimer
Andrew Jackson
Tom Watson
Gareth Bayer
Max Wheeler
Asher Gentle
Warwick Shepherd
James Ley
Myall Hingee
John Horan
Pete Hemphill
Thomas Walcott

The teams are fairly large. This is for three main reasons: 1) We want to test some methods of line-balance and 'time on field' management, 2) We want to assess a range of players in pressure games at tournaments. 3) These tournaments are not our end goal and are working towards ourgreater plan for Prague.

Thanks for everyone's continued efforts so far this season. Congratulations to those selected and if you missed out we encourage you to continue to come to training and improve your skills to take advantage of every future opportunity that Kaboom, Factory Girls and Fyshwick United will provide you.

If you have any questions for the selectors, please reply to this email and I'll pass those questions along.

Australian team takes Bronze!

Well if you are keen on frisbee stuff and you haven't been locked under the stairs for the past week, you probably already know that the Australian team crushed the Canadians in the Bronze medal play off at the World Games in Taiwan this week.

Canberra has been so lucky to be graced with the presence of several of the Crocs including Matt Dowle, Keah Molomby, Jonno Holmes and even a quick visit from Di Worman. Hopefully they'll have their bling to show off next week while they are around and about.

If you see them, give them a kiss for me!

Kaboom training squad announced!

Hi everyone,

Thanks to you all for your interest in the Kaboom training squad for Mixed Nationals this year. We have never run tryouts before so hopefully the sessions were as interesting to attend as they were to run.

Unfortunately, it became clear during the tryouts that we do not have sufficient interest to field two organised and trained Kaboom teams at Mixed Nationals this year. This has forced the Kaboom stewards to reduce the training squad to suit the one team that Kaboom will be able to send. Hopefully a pickup team will form to help fly the ACT flag in Hobart (the ACT has two slots so a pickup team would automatically qualify). It also made spots in the squad more competitive and difficult to get. The squad is still quite big but once the usual toll of injuries, work hassles and bankruptcies take their toll we will have a normal sized squad from which to select the team towards the end of the year.

With that in mind extra congratulations are due for the Kaboom 2009 Mixed Nationals squad:

Annette Zou
Asha Sharma
Carrie Flynn
Heather Tolley
Larissa Arney
Micaela Hartley
Shoko Okada
Sue Brown
Vickie Saye
Angela Hudson
Rachel Gentle
Lorna Barr
Laina Hall
Erin Wallis
Jess Preston
Nat "Trouble" Cheong
Charlotte Peterson

Adam Mortimer
A J
Andrew Sutton
Ben Matthews-Hunter
Tom Walcott
Tom Watson
Gareth Beyers
John Horan
Peter Flynn
Max Wheeler
Ian McKerracher
Ross McKerracher
Asher Gentle
Wawrick Shepherd
Peter Hemphill
James Ley
James O'Reilly
Myall Hingee
Matt Howarth

Well done to everyone selected for the squad. Thanks again to everyone for braving the winter weather and heading along to the tryouts. Hopefully it was a worthwhile event for everyone and if you would like any individual feedback or more information about why you were or weren't selected please contact John or the rest of the leadership group at who.is.the.schmooze@gmail.com.

For those people who were not selected it was great to see you looking to improve your ultimate and we hope you get the chance to build up your skills once the ground unfreezes and regular ultimate resumes in Spring.

Tom, on behalf of the Kaboom stewards Jess, Erin, Pete, Tom and John

Kaboom training squad tryouts complete!

Well last night saw the 2nd and final evening of try-outs for the Kaboom training squad. Try-outs are now done and dusted and the leadership will be meeting on the weekend to determine who will get on to the training squad that will later form the two Kaboom teams heading to Hobart later this year.

The evening saw much more pleasant conditions than the previous week, with no wind or wet to challenge the players. We are pretty pleased with how the night went and are looking forward to what is to come.

-Tom